At least 3,000 Yazidis still held by Islamic State in Iraq, Syria: Kurdistan

Duhok (IraqiNews.com) At least 3,000 Yazidis are still held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Kurdistan Region’s Government declared on Thursday.

“3,073 Yazidi males and females of different age groups are still captivated by IS,” Hussein Qa’idi, head of KRG’s Yazidi Kurds Liberation Office.

The federal government in Baghdad, according to Qa’idi, does not offer any kind of assistance in searching for or liberation of the kidnapped.

Moreover, Qa’idi blamed the difficulty of the mission on entrance of the pro-government of al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces), the financial crisis in Kurdistan and the ban on international flights.

On Wednesday, news reports said Iraqi troops ran into 12 mass graves in Sinjar, west of Nineveh.

Fahd Hamed Omar, acting mayor of Sinjar, said, earlier this week, the total number of mass graves of Yazidi victims have reached 62 in Sinjar, describing the execution of Yazidis as “the biggest genocide in the modern times”. Relics of 24 Yazidis were found in a mass grave on Sunday in Kesra al-Mei’rab village in the town.

Habitat of the Iraqi Yazidi religious minority, Sinjar came under the international spotlights after IS militants took over the region in 2014.

Many Yazidis were persecuted and held in Mosul by Islamic State, which considered them devil-worshippers.